Name the Object—We Have a Winner!

We had a number of responses to our Name the Object contest last week—including people making suggestions via Twitter and Facebook. To refresh your memory, we asked you what you’d name this object:

The actual title is Roto; it’s a sculpture by Ronald Davis and was created in 1968.

There were a lot of great responses (all of which can be seen in the comments to the original post), and we definitely had some back and forth as to whom the winner should be. We came this close to awarding Donald Frazell for his inspired Uh, hello, HELLOOOO! until we realized that he wasn’t competing. (We’re slow that way.)

In the end, the winning entry came from Zack, who came up with Panopticon (Architectural Drawing from “Rodeo Drive Dressing Room from Hell,” Socialite Torture Version, after Bruce Nauman and Michel Foucault). Sure, it’s not as succinct as the original title, but we found it evocative if not also a little absurd. Points were also awarded for the sheer amount of time Zack spent on this task, as he returned to the comments section three times total—over the course of many days!—obsessively revising his title. Guess what Zack: you got it just right. Congratulations. We’ll be emailing you to arrange your two free tickets to Pompeii and the Roman Villa.